The approach and landing is the most difficult phase of a flight due to the precision actions required and increased pilot workload. While flying an instrument approach for example, pilots are trained to monitor progress and make adjustment with reference to a plurality of flight instruments, e.g., the Flight Director (FD), the glide path deviation scale, and the Horizontal Situation Indicator (HSI).
Furthermore, most air traffic control systems around the world utilize voice communications to transmit various messages between air traffic controllers and pilots. These messages include, among other things, flight clearances, various advisories, and weather information, which help ensure coordination of aircraft movement, and appropriate aircraft separation. As air travel has increased over the years, controller-pilot communication has concomitantly increased to the point that the voice communication channels have, at many locations, become saturated during peak aircraft traffic periods.
Additionally, aircraft systems provide various messages to alert the pilot to the aircraft's position during the approach and landing. Currently, some alerting systems, for example, a runway awareness and advisory system, provide alerts that may not be needed and can create unwanted situations in the cockpit where the alerts, in addition to the monitoring of instruments and reception of voice information, begins to interfere with normal cockpit routines, including communication with air traffic control.
Therefore, although the present communication system implementation is generally reliable and safe, it may be cumbersome, time-consuming, and a distraction to the pilot, and other types of mental transformation errors when overburdened with too much information.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a system and method for reducing, or modulating, non-essential information provided to a pilot during an approach and landing. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the exemplary embodiments will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.